Canada face Brazil in the bronze medal match Friday in Mineirao. Sweden will play Germany for the gold at Maracana.
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Hope Solo caused quite a stir with her recent comments about Sweden playing like “cowards”, and one of her teammates has disavowed the remarks. But Cristiane had her shot blocked by Swedish goalkeeper Hedvig Lindahl. “They wanted to win the match 1-0”. But this is football.
“I’m delighted that Pia has put her faith in me, and that confidence is crucial to our tactic of inviting opposing sides on and then hitting them on the counter-attack”, explained Lindahl.
“It would be very regrettable to lose these players”. “I don’t want to think about this right now”, she asserted. “Marta is a very good player”. Brazil beat Australia in a controversial penalty shootout that sent Brazil to the semi-finals.
While women’s soccer is not very popular in Brazil, Marta impressed with her intelligent play and stellar footwork.
Some Brazilian fans have even removed Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior’s (Neymar) name on their No. 10 jerseys and replaced it with Marta’s, based on the report of Mass Live.
“Better than Neymar!” fans cheered after one match. But a gold in Rio de Janeiro in the temple of Brazilian football would have been particularly sweet-and would have boosted the women’s game in Brazil, which has often lacked official support. They won the silver at Athens (2004) and Beijing (2008) and were runners-up in the World Cup in China in 2007. But Germany came out strong. The Americans, knocked out in the Rio quarterfinals by Sweden, would go on to the final that year. “That’s a compliment to her”, Solo told The Associated Press during the Olympics. “That we are doing something that the Swedish national team has never done before – play for a medal – it’s a big smile”, Sundhage said.
“This loss won’t take away from all that we have done to get here”, Marta said. Marta and Beatriz scored two goals each in that first match. With the US team it was attacking football. But she has never won a major global tournament with her national team. “Through the whole 120 minutes we did try our best, we tried everything, that’s why it is so frustrating”, Brazil’s head coach Vadao said.
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Sweden ended a disconsolate Marta’s dreams of guiding Brazil’s women to a first Olympic football gold medal Tuesday with a 4-3 penalty shoot-out win to book their place in the gold medal match. Sweden qualified for the final after beating Brazil on penalty kicks. Canada maintained the majority of possession throughout the game, but rarely threatened on goal, managing just four shots, two on target.
